For the World

Dear God, Who makes all light on earth,
I want to be a sunshine.
I want to show the world some love
To show them what it's like above.

Dear God, Who makes all color here,
I want to be a rainbow.
I want to show the world some joy
For every little girl and boy.

Dear God, Who makes all silence 'round,
I want to be a whisper.
I want to show the world some peace
Not known to earthly man or beast.

Life Is Like a Gay Gordons

So somewhere in all of the random words and phrases that spill out of my mouth when no one else is around, I found myself saying "dancing with God" last night as I went to bed. This led my mind down a trail to what Scottish dance would be a good analogy for life, and Gay Gordons seems quite appropriate. A quick run through of the dance for all you Scottish dance innocents: Promenade (walk with your partner) forward 4 steps; Promenade backward 4 steps; Repeat both promenades; Lady twirls under her partners hand; Waltz (ed: polka actually); and Repeat all. (Sorry, guys but this analogy only works right if you let God take the "man's" role in the dance.)

Joining the dance at God's invitation to dance with Him, you have times when life is pretty normal and straightforward, nothing complicated. Then there are times when everything seems backwards, so it's a good thing God's right there by your side. When life gets crazy hectic, you could spin out of control if you don't put our hand in His to keep you centered on track. And then there are the times when you just follow God's lead as He guides you through life (at least that's what you're supposed to do for things to go smoothly).

2006 has definitely been a twirling season for me. Keep that hand up, Sarah.

Pretty

The Remnant

Hey! A serious post. Imagine that!

A couple of weeks ago, Mom found a magazine article about an adult Christian singles community service volunteer organization called The Remnant. I attended my first meeting Tuesday night, and it sounds like this will be a nice group to be a part of. According to the e-mail list, a couple of old friends are involved, so it will be nice to see them again. My first volunteer activity will be helping to clean and paint the activity hall of a private children's group home.

A variety of social events are listed as available for Remnant members. One of these is West Coast Swing classes on Thursday nights. Obviously, my Thursday nights are committed elsewhere, but this week Scottish dance was canceled due to the weather. I had my heart set on getting out and being active last night, so I decided to give West Coast Swing a try. I almost talked myself out of it since it's something I won't be able to commit to, but getting to meet some more Remnant members talked me into it. Any Scottish dancers reading this don't need to worry about losing me to West Coast Swing. I'm too mechanical and bad at following. Scottish dance works for me because there's a nice formula to how each dance is done. I've just got to be methodically artistic and that's that. Not to say the class last night wasn't fun; I'm just not suited to that type of dancing.

Another Music Quiz

The rules on this quiz say to put your playlist on shuffle and fill in the questions in order with the songs. Since I tend to stay a step or two behind popular technology, I altered the rules to use radio songs as they come. Specifically I used CMRadio.net's Celtic station.

How does the world see you?
The Castle of Dromore (Joanna Mell)
Googling reveals the song sounds Scottish, but the actual castle is Irish.
Will I have a happy life?
Paddy Glackin (Shanachie)
He sounds like a happy fellow.
What do my friends really think of me?
Your Love and Your Mercy (Sammy Horner)
That makes me sound super nice!
How can I make myself happy?
Around This Table (Debbie Zepick)
Eat dinner with family/friends, perhaps?
What should I do with my life?
Forty Days and Forty Nights (Moira Kerr)
Uh-oh... I hope I'm not the next Noah.
Will I ever have children?
Come Lord Jesus (Prairie Bible College)
I'm going to take that to mean Christ will return before I get the chance.
What is some good advice for me?
My Shepherd (Caroline Bowles)
Good reminder.
How will I be remembered?
Show Me (Moya Brennan)
In a painting?
What is my signature song?
Lift the Wings (Bill Whelan)
I'm free as a bird!
What do I think my current theme song is?
Smoke Goes Up (Raymond McCullough)
Well, it may not all be going up in flames, but it is getting a little smoky.
What does everyone else think my current theme song is?
An Toll Dubh (Runrig)
Wow! Everyone else knows Gaelic? Erm, translation: "All the miles"
What song will play at my funeral?
Writing on the Wall (Karnataka)
Just so Dad can tell how I took a crayon to the walls when Chris was born.
What type of men/women do I like?
Creator of Creation (Eden's Bridge)
Well, of course I like God. I don't think that's what the question was looking for silly song list.
What is my day going to be like?
The Banshee Song (Ballydowse)
Shrieking ghosts!! Oh dear, that'll never do. I'll just have to sic my pet kelpie on them.

Band Quiz Meme

Choose a band/artist and answer ONLY in titles of their songs:

My Artist Is... Ceili Rain

1. Are you male or female?
Queen For a Day

2. Describe yourself:
Jigorous

3. How do some people feel about you:
Forty Shades of Green (edit: green as in Ireland not envy)

4. How do you feel about yourself:
I Wanna Be Different

5. Describe your ex boyfriend/girlfriend:
You Just So Never Know

6. Describe your current significant other:
I've Never Been to Ireland

7. Describe where you want to be:
House Not Made with Hands

8. Describe how you live:
'Tween the Jigs & the Reels

9. Describe how you love:
A Hundred Smiles an Hour

10. What would you ask for if you had just one wish:
Peace Has Broken Out

11. Share a few words of wisdom:
These Things Have a Way of Workin' Out

12. Now say goodbye:
Call Home

Oh, and a side note on the previous post... If I ever get a galapagos, it's name will most likely be Darby.

A G-A-L-A-P-A-G-O-S-agos

Lately we've started doing "Flying Scotsman" questions again. In "The Flying Scotsman," everyone has a turn to lead the "train," so sometimes each person answers a question as they lead off. A couple of weeks ago was cool because everyone called out their favorite dances, and then we spent the rest of the evening dancing our favorites. My favorite is "Cuckoo Clock" because it has such a good variety of figures. It is also David's favorite dance, so Beth had us dance as lead couple. It was rather weird because I so rarely dance it as a woman. China and I are nearly always partners on that particular dance with me on the man's side. Some dances you don't really notice a change when you switch sexes, but "Cuckoo Clock" is not one of them. I even stuck David on the girl's side once!

Last night's "Flying Scotsman" question was what we think would make the best pet. There were some pretty interesting answers from sea cucumber to naked mole rat. My answer was rather boring as I just said turtle. After giving that answer further thought in order to remedy the mundaneness of it, I have decided more specifically a galapagos would be nice. If I ever have kids, they could ride the family pet. Also, with a galapagos I should be able to plop down next to it, rest my arm on his shell, and ramble on without worrying about boring him. He would be slow enough, I wouldn't have to worry about him running away; and with a turtle's life span, I should never have to deal with a dead pet.

St. Thomas: Episode 5: Last Full Day

Sunday morning we picked a church out of the yellow pages, called them up for directions, and gave it a whirl. They sang all the old familiar Maranatha songs we sang back when I was a kid in West Virginia. My favorite part was the greeting time when everyone walked around the church giving quick hugs and blessings to everyone else while the choir sang a song that fit perfectly. I wish I could remember the song. I think TCF should do that kind of mingle time mid-service and save the visiting for after church. I enjoyed the worship so much that I was surprised to find how late it was. We ducked out before the sermon started so we could get a little sightseeing into our day.

When we got to downtown Charlotte Amalie, we found out it was a 3-cruise-ship day. That meant that traffic was crazy with taxi drivers inching along trying to offer any pedestrian a ride back to the ship. We finally realized we would just have to park and walk. After lunch in a nice cafe supposedly world famous for its hot sauce (Gladys' Hot Sauce, anyone?), we started walking in the general direction of Seven Arches Museum in hopes that we would get lucky and actually find it. We not only found it, but it was open! The proprietor who lives there with her husband gave us a nice, albeit slightly rushed, tour of the 18th century Danish home. With the heat what it was, we were rather disappointed not to get the free tropical drinks that are advertised.

Not knowing what else to do, we headed back to the guesthouse for another evening of relaxation and family time. With all that free time, it was a good thing I had brought Dutch Blitz and playing cards.

The next morning, we saw Chris off in his seaplane to St. Croix. When we went downtown to do a little more shopping before we left, a police officer told us the car's tags were expired so Dad dropped me and Mom off to grab a couple of quick souvenirs before heading back to the airport early. It's crazy that we went the entire trip without being pulled over until two hours before we planned to head to the airport, but, hey, that's life. It was a good vacation.

St. Thomas: Episode 4: Bay Day

Our plans for Saturday were to visit the St. Peter Greathouse in the morning and Magen's Bay in the afternoon. This worked out well because the morning was hazy and not ideal beach weather but by noon everything was bright and sunny.

St. Peter Greathouse is a beautiful tropical estate near the highest point in St. Thomas. We just wandered around enjoying the views and the flowers then relaxed under a gazebo while drinking tropical punch. We did have a little drama to begin the visit when I suddenly said, "Turn here!" so Dad did and wound up with one wheel stuck over the curb. Fortunately, he was able to get unstuck fairly easily once the rest of us got out of the car. Anyways, on with the day... As we headed towards Magen's Bay, we took the opportunity to stop at Drake's Seat where Sir Francis Drake supposedly watched his ship's travel through "Drake's Passage."

We got to Magen's Bay, reportedly one of the 10 most beautiful beaches in the world, just in time for lunch but nothing exotic. After lunch, I rented some snorkel gear and Chris took me snorkeling. I had such a difficult time getting started I couldn't do anything but laugh. I finally gave up trying to put the goggles over my glasses and that worked much better. I was close enough to the marine life too see most stuff pretty well, and I held my glasses as I swam around to get an occasional better view. The wierdest thing was swimming through a giant school of 2-inch translucent white fish. I saw just a few colorful fish, several white fish the size of sandwich plates, sea fans, spiny urchins and I even managed to spot a sea cucumber!

Family time

St. Thomas: Episode 3: Drive Me Crazy

We had seen all there was to see at Coral World by lunch time and were stuck saying, "Um, what now?" Mom's friend from work used to live on St. Thomas and said there was a nice view of St. John from Red Hook, so we decided to head that way. We came across Red Hook shortly, but didn't really see a good place to stop and before we knew it we were out of town and headed back towards Charlotte Amalie. We turned around and drove around and around trying to find a good spot to stop until we gave up and decided to head back to the center of Red Hook for lunch. Trying to stay in the island theme I had a jerk chicken wrap.

Did I mention I was sort of the designated tour guide? Therefore, everyone turned to me to figure out something to do for the afternoon. We all agreed upon Blackbeard's Castle and headed back towards Charlotte Amalie to find it. We got to where the magazine I was referring to said it should be and it wasn't there, so I switched magazines found a new point of reference for where it should be and we kept on driving. We finally found Bluebeard's Castle and wound up the hill to check it out. Bluebeard's Castle turned out to have been built up into a hotel, so after some fancy driving on Dad's part we got out of there and went looking for a tourist information center. Since Chris needed to stop at a bank and it was near a tourist shopping area, we set out looking for someone who might know something, but all we could find was this dude running a pirate shop who gave us vague directions but didn't know the street names. Heading back into Charlotte Amalie, we got lost in neighborhoods a couple more times before finally locating the castle around 3:10 pm. We headed in and started looking around, but were soon informed that they closed at 3:00 pm. After all that driving, we had figured out where a couple other sites were so we headed back downtown to climb the historic 99 steps and visit the garden of the First Ladies of the Virgin Islands.

Pirate queen fountain below Blackbeard's Castle and above the 99 Steps.

After all that driving around, we were ready to just head back to the guesthouse to relax. For dinner, we headed to Tickle's Dockside Pub which was a little bit pricey but then all Virgin Islands food seems to cost more. The fresh ocean air and the location mere yards from a submarine and fancy-schmancy yachts gave it a nice atmosphere and it gets mega-bonus points for not being next to impossible to find. The fish & chips don't compare to Scotland, but I blame that in part to my preference for haddock over grouper.

Dude!

St. Thomas: Episode 2: Coral World

We got going Friday morning and found Coral World, St. Thomas' aquarium attraction, without too much trouble.

We arrived just in time to catch the tail end of feeding time at the "Caribbean Reef Encounter" and admire the varied fish, especially the sting rays. Wandering on outdoors we found sharks, sea turtles, and stingrays in individual pools and an iguana nearly ran over my foot before leaping a story to the rocks below. For a more natural encounter with the reefs, we descended into the undersea observatory where we could admire the marine wildlife in their natural habitat. The coolest thing was spotting a sea spider, just because it was something you've got to be sharp eyed to notice.

We headed back to the shark pool to watch the sharks be fed and to pet a baby shark.

We continued to wander about the grounds enjoying the unique fish and sea creatures in the "Marine Gardens" aquariums; exploring the little nature trail; and feeling starfish, sea cucumbers, and the like at the touch pool. All in all it was a very enjoyable and interesting morning.

St. Thomas: Episode 1: The Journey

The trip down to St. Thomas was uneventful on the surface, just your typical air travel - delays and all. However, there were a few interesting factors in the delays:

* Right before we were to board the plane in Dallas, a flight attendant fell and apparently cut his head pretty bad, so he had to be taken care of and a replacement attendant called in before boarding could begin of course.
* Once everyone was settled on the plane, it was determined that a fuel gauge or some other such mechanical device had to be replaced before we could take off. Fortunately, that took less time than they estimated.
* We finally arrived in San Juan where it eventually turned out that 3(!) airplanes had to be grounded due to mechanical troubles so our flight had to be combined with a later flight to St. Thomas.
* Boarding in San Juan was a little crazy because the shuttle got the passengers out to the airplane before the flight crew. The bus was so packed that people started pushing out even though they weren't supposed to and there we were just hanging out on the tarmac.

We finally made it to St. Thomas where Chris was waiting for us at the airport. The adventure was about to begin. After finding our rental car in an unlit parking lot, finding our way to the other side of Charlotte Amalie was a piece of cake. It was once we pulled into our guesthouse's neighborhood that things started to get interesting. Narrow, steep, crumbly streets were to become our norm for the next few days. In the dark, the first time it seemed like we wound through that neighborhood forever before finding Ramsey's Guesthouse, but we made it and it wasn't long before we all settled in for the night.

To be continued...

Happy Magnuson Day!

It's been a while since I've posted anything, but a St. Thomas trip report is pending, and meanwhile:

I just encountered a very odd coincidence. I was writing the "s" in Magnuson when for completely unrelated reasons the name Magnuson was mentioned in BBC Scotland's Reel Blend trivia segment. According to OneLook, Magnuson is a rare surname occurring in 1 out of every 33,333 families with a popularity rank of 4,553 in the U.S.

In honor of this newly declared holiday, here is a picture of St. Magnus Cathedral in Kirwall, Orkney, Scotland:

Gullibility

This week's Scottish dance group question brought to mind an evening in front of the Towers dorms at ORU back in April of 2000. A group of friends was hanging out, and I had just announced that I had gotten my first (and only to this day) car that afternoon. Not to miss out on the announcements, one of my friends then said she was going to Japan. Between the two of us, we were able to fabricate a story in which she was going to be teaching German to deaf children in Japan. Somehow, we were believed even though absolutely none of it was true. We still laugh about it when we see each other.

Adventures in Beverage Land

I like drinking interesting things. Oftimes, that means delving into different cultures; sometimes, it means concocting my own drink.

• ~ I decided the weirdest thing I have had is a chocolate, peach passion, Mountain Dew shake. Mixing chocolate soft serve ice cream with Mountain Dew is a pretty incredible experience. If you ever have the chance, I strongly urge you give it a try.
• ~ I love heading to the mall for a bubble tea. The Taiwanese, I believe, came up with the idea of soaking giant tapioca pearls in tea and drinking/chewing them with flavoured tea.
• ~ My dad introduced me to honeyed chrysanthemum "tea" after his first trip to Singapore.
• ~ Lychee juice was a drink I discovered on my own in Singapore.
• ~ I discovered black currant juice in Scotland.
• ~ Most recently, I tried some ginger beer (non-alcoholic) my brother brought back from St. Croix. That's a real kick.

I know I'm leaving stuff out. That is such a small sampling, but it's all I can think of at the moment.

Oddest Job

For the sake of completeness only, I'll post the oddest job I've had as it was submitted to the Scottish dance group:

Working in a Mediterranean restaurant run by a couple of Middle Eastern men who would sit out front smoking their hookah. One night I even had to wear a fez.

Brow wrinkler

The lead in line for the health segment of the morning news went "Research shows the sun's dangers outweigh its benefits." Okay, hold up. When I hear that something's risks or dangers outweigh the benefits, I normally assume that the people who have determined such are proposing that the item in question no longer be used. So are these people proposing we send a nuclear warhead into the sun so we don't have to worry about it any more? Okay, okay, so I listened to the story and the researchers were actually saying that people shouldn't sit out in the sun to soak up rays to get Vitamin D. These researchers say that all the health benefits from the sun can be found much more safely by popping pills. I suppose these people want us to build a bunch of sci-fi domes equipped with happy lights (for SAD). I'll avoid going into the subject of sunlight and plants because that would be taking the issue out of context. I could go on a bit longer to fill out my arguments, but it's about time for me to step out and get what little sun I can on a work day in February.